The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry is offering an exhibit that will absolutely elate every eco-friendly lover. It is by fact, the Greenest House in Chicago and by title the, "Smart Home: Green and Wired." It's been made with a sustainable design and uses recycled materials. Even the technology used is "green smart."

Partnered with Wired magazine, the home has been built in the backyard of the museum and has 3 floors. It offers visitors a tour through an entirely eco-friendly home. All of the products are eco-friendly and all of the technology is cutting edge green. To top it off, the gift store even sells environmentally promotional items. From books on sustainable architecture to recycled items, they're showing every visitor that green promotions are what it's all about.

This week, leaders from around the world met at the international summit building for carbon emission discussions in Copenhagen, Denmark. Government leaders are hoping to make agreements that will help us all move towards more sustainable societies.

The United States, who when joined with China account for 50% of the entire earth's emissions, is feeling the pressure. President Barack Obama plans on joining the committee towards the end of the week when more leaders are present and more brainstorming has been done.

It's likely that Australia will have a strong presence in Denmark as well. An environmentally focused group from Australia recently created the first ever world-wide community dedicated to fighting carbon emissions with fun. They provide packages to help you spread eco-friendly practices in your workplace.

Their latest promotion uses the ever popular promotional stickers. Each sticker displays a carbon fighter slaying the "C" shaped carbon. The stickers urge people to recycle and conserve energy. One sticker reads, "Go for the Stairs," and depicts the carbon "C" as an elevator being violently shaken. Another urges you to turn off the lights and one more to promote car pooling. 

                             
Each has a twisted illustration, a clever hook and an awesome message. We're got to make every aspect of our lives more sustainable.To my surprise they even have a promotional sticker about promotional mugs. It reads, "Use a mug, not a plastic cup." It shows swords all piercing through the carbon "C" but only sticking out of the custom mugs. Like our promotional eco-friendly mugs, they're durable and long lasting.

Let's hope the United States has some good green resolutions to make this year. The war against carbon is not yet over.  

Listen up multi-million dollar sponsors of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Are you training to snag the gold medal? You don't have to watch the carbs or pump iron anymore. Just choose environmentally friendly products and you could be the business standing at the top of the awards podium.
            
Sherri Lennarson, PPAI board chair, said, "Apparel and souvenirs with the iconic rings, host city logos and designs from participating countries help create the sense of team spirit and unity associated with the Olympic Games." Imagine the great exposure you'll gain when your logo is imprinted next to the infamous 5 rings for an audience that covers each of the continents. Lennardson added, "Some of the world’s leading corporations invest millions of dollars in Olympic sponsorships for the widespread brand exposure and association with such a historic event."
  
PPAI is excited for the promotional product opportunities the Olympics bring and are especially thrilled to inform us that many sponsoring companies will be using environmentally friendly promotional items to gain notability at the upcoming events. What better way to promote sustainability then when given the stage in front of every nation in the world.

Leaders from many nations, included United States president, Barak Obama, will be meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark this week to discuss climate change goals. The United States and China are responsible for half of the world's emissions and are therefore a major focus of this week’s international summit. While negotiations are made and new ideas generated, it's important to stay proactive.
                               
While eco-friendly promotional items will give every country and various companies’ great exposure, they will be especially important for China and the United States. Let's make a bold statement of change and sustainability by arming our best athletes in eco-friendly apparel.

If winning gold for your environmentally friendly efforts at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics isn't enough, consider another gold medal opportunity. Many people take pride in collecting promotional items from the Olympics because of their huge value. “Mascots, pins and stamps have become highly-sought after items, allowing spectators to have ownership of a part of history,” said PPAI board chair, Lennarson. “An Olympic pin from the 1960 Olympic Games can sell for nearly $300 today," Lennardson added.
                  
Now with eco-friendly promotional giveaways you can get notability and become a part of history. Let's gear up in our eco-friendly outerwear, cling to the fun eco-friendly giveaways and go for the gold at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

This holiday season shoppers are being encouraged to buy pricier eco-friendly products though consumer studies have shown that they will also be spending less money. However, due to unique eco-friendly shopping incentives and fun promotional environmentally friendly products, this holiday season will be just as jolly as the last.

Due to the tight economy, only 62% of companies are planning holiday festivities for their employees, a drastic cut-back of 15% from last year. But luckily, with the addition of budget holiday gifts and some good-ole compromise, many companies are retaining their holiday traditions.
         
Potluck luncheons are being adopted, asking employees to bring in a special holiday dish and reimbursing them for their spending. This puts a special home-cooked touch on each holiday party and dismisses expensive catering hall fees and tips. By moving the party from a fancy restaurant to the company office abides by tighter budgets and also creates a more casual party experience.

Of course, no company holiday party is complete without the addition of company holiday gifts. To be the most cost effective and sustainable, administrators are being urged to use eco-friendly corporate gifts. Cool bamboo products are a popular choice for employees because it will make them feel appreciated and give them a wonderful item for the home or office. There are even bamboo USB drives to consider. Of course more traditional promotional chocolate and corporate gifts are also available. But with eco-friendliness all the rage and pressing budgets hovering, environmentally friendly corporate gifts are the perfect choice.
                                 
To help bring in the holiday season, wide-spread chain stores are even joining in on the eco-friendly holiday fun. Home Depot is offering a rare incentive to do holiday decoration shopping with them. By bringing in your old strings of lights, customers will receive $3 coupons towards new, energy efficient, LED lights. This then saves an additional 80% of energy for its users. Likewise, power-drills will be accepted for trade-ins, giving a 15% off coupon towards a new lithium-ion batteried power-drill. Home Depot will then recycle the massive energy consuming items in the most proper way.
                             
The promotions, running from November 5th to 15th for lights and November 5th to 8th for power-drills, hopes to make customer's more earth-aware while boosting sales and satisfying everyone’s holiday decorating budgets.

With advances in eco-friendliness and an abundance of eco-friendly corporate gifts, we can expect more environmentally friendly and happy holiday seasons for years to come.

The historic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was built in 1870 on a strip of sand more than a quarter mile from the water's edge. It was thought to be safe from the sea's force. For almost a century, it was. But by the 1970s, the slow rise of the ocean's waves threatened its foundation. The lighthouse was a mere 160 feet from the water's edge.

To preserve the landmark, the nation's tallest brick lighthouse, the National Park Service moved it more than half a mile inland—an engineering feat that took a decade to plan and cost taxpayers a whopping $10 million.

Beach-front owners on the Outer Banks are losing ground, too. People from all over visit the shores, which are now lined with beach houses, explains Doug Stover, cultural resource manager of Cape Hatteras National Sea Shore. "What's happening," says Stover, "is that they're losing more sand so they're trucking in more sand ... to preserve their homes."

How global warming raises sea levels

Higher seas are one of the most certain consequences of global warming. Why? For one, melting glaciers and polar ice sheets add water to our oceans. Glaciers store water on land. When these huge ice masses melt into the oceans, it adds volume and water levels rise. (The concept is simple to demonstrate. Add a bunch of ice cubes to a glass of water that's already full to the brim and it will overflow. That extra water is like the extra ocean water from melting glaciers.)

On top of that, water expands as it gets warmer. So as the temperature rises, the same amount of water takes up more space. This raises sea levels higher.

Risks multiply as sea levels rise

Rising sea levels are a double whammy for the coastline. Not only do they flood the land, but higher ocean waves also erode more coastline. Coastal residents face a constellation of concerns: higher flood risk, more property damage and higher insurance rates. (Higher insurance rates can also cost taxpayers, since the federal government subsidizes flood insurance for many coastal properties.)

The lighthouse's situation illustrates another way in which global warming puts coastal property owners in double jeopardy. When scientists from the National Academies of Science assessed the lighthouse's troubles, they found two main reasons for the eroding foundation: rising sea levels and hurricanes. Hurricanes are expected to get stronger as global warming worsens. (More about hurricanes and global warming.)

On the health front, rising seas also contaminate fresh water supplies with salty water in places like Philadelphia, New York City (its drought supply), and much of California's Central Valley.

Trouble throughout the country

Over the twentieth century, the seas rose between four and eight inches, ten times the average rate of the last 3,000 years. This alarming trend threatens all of the nation's coastal communities, where more than half the U.S. population lives. Other parts of the globe are vulnerable, too. More frequent and extreme flooding due to sea-level rise threatens low-lying areas near the mouths of the Nile in Egypt, the Mekong in Vietnam and Cambodia, and Ganges and Brahmaputra in Bangladesh and other rivers around the world. Italy's famous sinking city of Venice, which is surrounded by water and whose ground underneath is subsiding like Louisiana's, is also particularly vulnerable.

Scientists project that sea levels will continue to rise as a result of human-produced greenhouse gas pollution and could reach an additional 3.5 inches to 3 feet by the end of the century, with the possibility of even larger rises should the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica disintegrate. A foot of higher waters could destroy anywhere from 50 to 1,000 feet of horizontal shoreline in many parts of the U.S., depending on the slope of the coastline and other factors. Here is a snapshot of different areas suffering from rising seas.

• One-third of the marsh at the Chesapeake Bay's Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is now submerged.

• The edges of mangrove forests in Bermuda are lined with recently drowned trees.

• The loss of wetlands, Mother Nature's first defense against storms, put Louisiana's coastline and New Orleans in a precarious position. About every thirty minutes an area of land the size of a football field in the Mississippi Delta vanishes and is replaced by open water. (While global warming is contributing to rising sea levels, part of Louisiana's land loss is due to subsidence from both natural and man-made causes.)

• On the West Coast, flat, low-lying coastal areas such as the San Francisco Bay area and parts of the L.A. area also vulnerable.

• If sea level continues to rise, thousands of square miles of land in densely populated areas such as the eastern U.S. may be lost in a century or two, and flooding during storm surges will worsen. Construction of physical barriers such as seawalls would be expensive and in some cases infeasible.

WASHINGTON – The flow of water in the world's largest rivers has declined over the past half-century, with significant changes found in about a third of the big rivers. An analysis of 925 major rivers from 1948 to 2004 showed an overall decline in total discharge.

The reduction in inflow to the Pacific Ocean alone was about equal to shutting off the Mississippi River, according to the new study appearing in the May 15 edition of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.

The only area showing a significant increase in flow was the Arctic, where warming conditions are increasing the snow and ice melt, said researchers led by Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

"Freshwater resources will likely decline in the coming decades over many densely populated areas at mid- to low latitudes, largely due to climate changes, Dai said. "Rapid disappearing mountain glaciers in the Tibetan plateau and other places will make matters worse."

Added co-author Kevin Trenberth, "As climate change inevitably continues in coming decades, we are likely to see greater impacts on many rivers and water resources that society has come to rely on."

While Dai cited climate change as a major factor in the changes, the paper noted that other factors are also involved, including dams and the diversion of water for agriculture and industry.

Nonetheless, he said, "long-term changes in streamflow should be a major concern under global warming."

Indeed, the researchers wrote that "for many of the world's large rivers the effects of human activities on yearly streamflow are likely small compared with that of climate variations during 1948-2004."

"This is an important paper with new findings that are relevant to the health of river ecosystems and the people who live near or rely upon rivers to meet water needs," said Margaret A. Palmer, director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

"What is important from this study is these authors show that these decreases are due to a changing climate, not human activities like extractions or dam building, yet these changes will have impacts on humans and ecosystems because many of these regions have large populations and drought-stressed ecosystems," said Palmer, who was not part of the research team.

Among the rivers showing declines in flow, several serve large populations. These include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa and the Colorado in the southwestern United States.

On the other hand, areas with rising streamflow near the Arctic Ocean tend to have small populations.

There was considerable year-to-year variation in the flow of many rivers, but the overall trend over the period showed annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about 6 percent, or 526 cubic kilometers of water. That's close to the 552-cubic kilometer average annual flow of the Mississippi, the researchers reported.

The annual flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about 3 percent, or 140 cubic kilometers. In contrast, annual river discharge into the Arctic Ocean rose about 10 percent, or 460 cubic kilometers. There was little change in inflow to the Atlantic Ocean, where increases in the Mississippi and Parana rivers were balanced out by decreases in the Amazon River.

A cubic kilometer is a cube one kilometer on each side. A kilometer is about six-tenths of a mile.

Discharge of river water into the oceans deposits sediment near the river mouth and also affects worldwide ocean circulation patterns, which are driven by variations in water temperature and salinity.

In the United States, the flow of the Mississippi River increased by 22 percent over the period because of increased precipitation across the Midwest. On the other hand, the Columbia River's flow declined by about 14 percent, mainly because of reduced precipitation and higher water usage.

Major rivers showing declines in flow included the Amazon, Congo, Changjiang (Yangtze), Mekong, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Amur, Mackenzie, Xijiang, Columbia and Niger.

Declines in the Niger River in the 1970s and 1980s in particular reflected the Sahel Drought, the paper said. In addition, the periodic El Nino cooling of sea surface waters in the tropical Pacific led to lower flows in the Amazon and higher ones in the Mississippi when the phenomenon was in effect.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Via:http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=400&Itemid=64

 

Much attention has been paid in recent years to what seems to be a growing environmental conscience in the United States. Going green used to be considered expensive and a luxury for those who could afford the trend. Now it appears that we are learning that not only is adopting more environmentally conscious attitudes good for our economic situation, but also our….health? Yes, if we dig a bit deeper we can see that dirty industries and backwards policy is actually harming the health of the earth for our children and the health of her inhabitants today.

There are two levels of health consequences associated with dirty industry, both direct and indirect. The direct consequences are examples like increased asthma rates in areas with high smog indices. Chlorofluorocarbon release into the atmosphere has shown to decrease the filter of direct sunlight on the planet, resulting in more concentrated ultraviolet light reaching the surface of the earth. Perhaps it is no surprise then that in countries with depleted atmospheric gas, skin cancer rates are among the highest in the world.

The indirect health consequences are harder to see immediately, but closer examination reveals that these are, in fact, perhaps the most hazardous. Bi-products of dirty and backwards industries, such as coal and oil processing, include cancer causing substances like asbestos and benzene. A U.K. study conducted in 2002 indicated that coal and oil industry workers are at a much higher risk of developing  mesothelioma and leukemia.  Dr. Robert Taub among many other doctors who specialize in this area understand that these are substances that can be directly traced to antiquated pre-regulation equipment in industries whose environmental hazards are even more inherent.

Can we really afford to continue on the path we were on before? Investment in clean industry means not a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren, but also a healthier place for us to live today.

Written by James O’ Shea with The Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center. The Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center has long been recognized as the web's leading organization for relevant and authoritative information regarding asbestos and health complications associated with asbestos exposure. More information can be found at maacenter.org

The Problem

Many of our nation’s schools are in poor repair, making them a threat to our children’s health and ability to grow and learn. In 1995, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that “While laws compel children to attend school, some school buildings may be unsafe or even harmful to children’s health.” The average age of U.S. public schools is 42 years old and over 60 percent of schools report at least one serious maintenance problem. More than half of these schools report at least one unsatisfactory environmental condition such as poor ventilation.

Tight school budgets mean that school buildings are cleaned less frequently, allowing dust and mold to build up — both trigger asthma and allergies. Poorly maintained ventilation systems may also contribute to poor air quality in older school buildings and poor health among students. When schools are cleaned, the chemicals used may be harmful to children’s development. The pesticides used on school grounds are more harmful to growing children than they are to adults and may be used at unsafe levels.

In addition, a substantial number of schools, particularly those in low income communities, are built on the cheapest land available — which may be near polluting industries or may have been contaminated by previous industrial uses.

Who Is Affected?

Children are more vulnerable than adults to toxins in their environments due to their smaller size, developing bodies and normal childhood behavior such as crawling, digging in dirt and putting objects in their mouths. Scientists are beginning to link rising levels of childhood asthma and increased rates of hyperactivity in children to exposure to pesticides, toxic chemicals and pollutants.

What You Can Do

Join with other parents to perform a “toxic audit” of your child’s school. Find out what types of chemicals are used in your child’s school, if the land it’s built on contains toxic chemicals, what sources of pollution are nearby, and what maintenance issues could be triggering asthma and allergies in students. There are a number of “healthy school” groups and coalitions that can provide toolkits and other information for your audit, such as the Healthy Schools Network and Tools for Healthy Schools.

Join with other parents in your state to fight for healthier schools. Many states have coalitions fighting for laws and funding to make public schools healthier for children. For example, California’s Healthy Schools Campaign successfully passed a law that requires California public schools to reduce their use of pesticides on school grounds. Search the Internet to find out if your state has a coalition fighting for healthier schools.

Find out where your local and state officials stand on healthy schools. Attend town meetings and ask them whether they support more funding for school maintenance and reduced use of toxic chemicals in schools. Register to vote and vote for the candidates who will work to clean up your schools.

Other Resources

To find out more about how toxic chemicals and other environmental hazards affect children, contact Physicians for Social Responsibility or the Center for Health, Environment and Justice’s “Childproofing Our Communities” project.

Via: Earth Day Network

I hear a lot about how geeks adversely impact the environment. With our power-sucking computers, toxic game consoles, and general disinterest in the outdoors. But I'm here, today, to tell you that that's bunk. Geeks are greener than the average American, and it's time to point out why.

So we're starting a new series entitled "Why Geeks are Greener." And this is our first installment.

Video games, if you pay attention to the traditional green establishment, are the anti-christ. Not only do they gobble up power, they keep our kids from being at one with nature. And if kids can't be at one with nature, why will the protect it!?

*sigh*

Well folks, I'm here today to tell you that gaming is good for the environment. Whether you are right now experiencing shock, cynicism or relief, you'll want to read the following list of why games are green.

1. Children don't need boyscouts to care about global warming. I will fully admit to have been affected greatly in my experiences in the outdoors. But saying that caring about the environment is dependent on experiencing nature is like saying that caring about sex is dependent upon talking to girls. Just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean you don't want to do all you can to protect your chances at having a healthy future with it. Protecting nature isn't about loving nature anymore, it's about liking the idea of life continuing on the planet.
   
   
2. Gaming isn't that power intensive. Depending on what kind of system you have, your console might draw as much power as a CFL, or an incandescent lightbulb. Yes, the Wii is far more efficient than the XBox 360, but even the 360 only pulls a maximum of 150 watts. It's just not that much power, especially because neither pull much power at all when they're off. And the act of gaming itself, it turns out, is quite good for the environment.
3. Gaming keeps you out of the environment, and thus protects it. If every gamer decided to be a skier, air travel rates would skyrocket, new ski mountains would be developed, and millions more people would all fly or drive thousands of miles per summer to get to their favorite destination. Instead, their favorite destination is the living room.
   
   From there, we gamers get to have intense experiences and hang out with our friends who might live half the world away with only a tiny impact on the environment. It's a non-physical realm that allows for pseudo-physical experiences. And while traditional greens call that a replacement of the real world, I call it a protection of the real world.
4. Games are economic drivers with very little physical presence. I'd guess that your average copy of Halo 3 contains about $2 of raw materials. But when it hit stores it was worth $60. Where does all that money go? Well, into the pockets of the thousands of people who worked to create it. Actors, programmers, modelers, QA testers, musicians, artists, and BFG designers.
   
   So you get to employ thousands of people to produce a product that has a tiny environmental impact. And as the internet gets faster, the physical media is being eliminated from the process entirely.
5. Computer gaming requires nothing physical at all. At various times throughout the day, my computer goes through a transition from workstation to gaming console. The result is that I don't need a gaming console at all, and I get to play games that I have never owned physical copies of. Aside from the 100 watts of power it pulls from the wall (far less carbon intensive than, say, a drive down to the nearest soccer pitch) I can play Fifa 08 with my wife.
   
   I'm not getting any fitter, that's for certain, but the cost to the environment is virtually nonexistent.

There are, of course, ungreen things about gaming too. If you do it on a 42 inch plasma-screen HDTV, for example, you're going overboard. And running out to buy the new console as soon as it comes out isn't a very green policy, especially since Super Mario Bros. remains as fun today as it was in 1987. And the NES, I'll add, is a very green machine.

But be secure in knowing that your ultra-green friends who drive into the wilderness to have their experiences have no right to scoff at the ways in which you have your experiences.

Via Ecogeek.org

As though the paper-or-plastic question weren't vexing enough, now some retailers are finding that the "biodegradable" plastic bags they'd hoped would please green shoppers might not be so Earth-friendly after all.

Lunds and Byerly's recently replaced its plastic bags with a biodegradable bag made of low-density polyethylene that purportedly breaks down when exposed to sunlight, oxygen, soil, moisture and microbes.

But biodegradable bags are still petroleum-based, and while they do break down into smaller particles, chemicals eventually show up in the food chain and our bodies, according to Susan Hubbard, CEO of Eureka Recycling in Minneapolis. And it's unclear whether biodegradable bags can be recycled.

What's a shopper to do?

"I don't like plastic bags, so [the grocery store] is in a sense forcing me to bring a reusable bag," said Gail Hanson of Minneapolis, who was shopping at the northeast Minneapolis Lunds that only offers plastic bags, not paper. She keeps reusable bags in the front seat of her car so she remembers to take them into the store.

Although a recent attempt to mandate plastic bag recycling in Minnesota did not survive a legislative committee, pressure to cut back or eliminate the use of plastic bags has been building in the United States and around the world.

In 2007, San Francisco became the first city in the country to ban plastic shopping bags, and similar measures have been adopted or enacted in cities as diverse as Phoenix, Portland, Ore., and Boston. Seattle is debating a fee on plastic bags in hopes of encouraging shoppers to carry reusable bags, and several large stores including Ikea have either banned or begun charging for plastic bags.

Other countries, including China, have banned the distribution of free bags.

1 percent of bags are recycled

Biodegradable bags from Lunds and Byerly's are currently being recycled, but if that changes, Lunds and Byerly's will consider, well, bagging them.

"Our goal is still to be a more eco-friendly retailer," said Aaron Sorenson, spokesman for Lund Food Holdings Inc. The manufacturer of the stores' bags says they break down in two years in a landfill, and are 100 percent recyclable.

Americans use more than 90 billion plastic bags per year, but only about 1 percent of polyethylene plastic bags are recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Minnesotans recycle about 5 percent, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said. The rest wind up in landfills or on the landscape, where each may take hundreds of years to degrade, although estimates vary depending on the plastic.

So retailers like Lunds and Byerly's and consumers try to do the right thing -- though it can be frustrating figuring out what that is.

Roundy's, owner of Rainbow stores, chose not to use biodegradeable bags because store officials were told the bags cannot be mixed with other plastic bags for recycling, said Vivian King, director of public affairs at Roundy's.

(The Star Tribune is considering using biodegradable plastic bags for newspaper home delivery.)

Virginia-based manufacturer Trex Industries, which makes the Twin Cities' recycled plastic bags into plastic decking and lawn furniture, is doing a study to see if the biodegradable material compromises the product. If biodegradable material disintegrates when exposed to air and light, it might not make durable patio furniture, said Ginny Black, organics recycling coordinator at the MPCA.

The greenest bag

For all the hubbub over bags, there are shoppers who don't want plastic to go away, according to spokespeople at Cub, Rainbow, Target and Lunds/Byerly's. Consumers like the bags for frozen and deli items, and they use them for pet waste and garbage.

So while some supermarkets grapple with a so-called "greener" plastic bag, other retailers are charging for them or banning them to encourage use of reusable bags, which environmental experts say are the best choice.

When Ikea started charging a nickel for its plastic bags a year ago, the Swedish retailer expected bag use to drop 50 percent. Actual bag use plunged a surprising 92 percent, from 70 million to 6 million. In October the company will eliminate plastic and paper bags entirely.

Aldi supermarkets charge a nickel for paper and a dime for sturdy plastic bags that can be reused. The German company has charged for bags since it opened U.S. stores in 1976.

But mainstream grocery stores aren't likely to follow the lead of Mississippi Market Co-op in St. Paul, which eliminated plastic bags completely last month. Supermarkets don't want to alienate their customers, said supermarket analyst David Livingston.

"If you're buying a lot of groceries, reusable bags are cumbersome," Livingston said. "Stores should give away reusable bags if they want people to use them."

Many stores have done just that, or at least offered them at a discount. Stores that continue to offer plastic can look greener by highlighting their low-cost reusable bags. Cub Foods will offer a reusable bag free with a $25 purchase this week . Trader Joe's discourages use of paper or plastic by letting customers who bring their own reusable bags put their names in a drawing for prizes.

Target offers three sizes of reusable bags for 99 cents to $1.49. It does not currently collect plastic bags for recycling in its Minnesota stores but does so in California, Rhode Island and Maine to comply with state laws, said Target spokeswoman Amy VanWalter.

What about paper bags? Unlike plastic bags, paper is a renewable, compostable resource. Another alternative is a compostable bag made from corn starch, but those are about four times more expensive than plastic. Unfortunately, we can't plant forests fast enough to replace paper bags that are used only once, so put reusable bags in the car, Hubbard advised.

"Paper bags have always been a better choice than plastic," Hubbard said. "But reusable bags are the best choice."

Via: http://www.startribune.com/local/17582144.html